


pound of flesh

by scaredybear



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, F/F, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaredybear/pseuds/scaredybear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bear and the bull got their pound of flesh. (And they would get no more, Veronica would make sure of it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	pound of flesh

What remained of the Courier lay crumpled in a bed Veronica sat opposite of. She came back clinging to life and half a corpse; more specifically, she was found just past the gates of the Legate camp that mockingly straddled the border of NCR rule. The Second Battle of Hoover Dam was over; the war with the Legion was hard fought and narrowly won with the NCR praying the Legion's hubris would finish the job while they went and licked their own wounds.

The bear and the bull got their pound of flesh. (And they would get no more, Veronica would make sure of it.)

And maybe, just maybe, the Mojave would stay in one piece, and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't feel the need--no, the compulsion--to piece it all together again like some damned humpty dumpty.

Maybe, just maybe, they could travel to California like they dreamed of--just put the Mojave miles and miles behind them because what good did the wasteland ever do for them? For anyone? 

Assuming she survived--and Veronica found herself praying to a god she didn't believe in that she would. She already lost her family, her home, and was on the verge of losing the Courier too.

Quietly, she reached over and found her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze as if the gesture would wake her.

(It didn't.)

And maybe she would never wake, maybe she would waste away in that bed as Veronica watched on, helpless. What a farce it would be, for the Courier to go like that: so meek and mild, when they did nothing but rage against the storm in their waking life. She was little else but the lighthouse the Mojave broke itself against over and over and over, while she stitched it back together with trembling hands.

God, how could she care so much about a place that cared so little in return?

Veronica had watched the Courier die by inches then, and she was watching her die by inches now. The only difference being this death was physical. Somewhere along the line, the Courier's piecemeal death stole her spark. The bear and the bull and the wasteland gobbled it up like the ravenous ghouls they were and gave Veronica a husk in return, gave her an empty, unfeeling shell that continued to care too fucking much--

Her fingers twitched in Veronica's hand.


End file.
